


Head Games Of Chance

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 23:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is shitty. His is, at least. But the train ride home is a nice place to daydream and draw. Or discuss philosophy with strangers. Although it's unusual for him to go out for coffee with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Games Of Chance

**Author's Note:**

> A major plot point is blatantly stolen from a play I co-wrote and directed in high school. And apologies for all the philosophy talk. This fic kind of turned into a chance for me to nerd out about certain philosophical concepts.

It’s raining. The subway platform is packed with people who would normally be walking to work but don’t want to brave the torrent. It’s nice for Grantaire, because he rides the subway every day, sees the same faces at the same stops, hears the same announcements. Rain like this gives him new faces to sketch, new subjects to contemplate on the platform and on the train.

There’s a woman standing under a dripping pillar, beads of water falling steadily from above, sliding off her knitted hat and onto her shoulder, the cloth thick enough that she hasn’t noticed yet. She has a wide, pale face and large eyes under wisps of brown hair, and he puts pencil to paper, letting her take form beneath his fingers through shades of graphite. He manages to get a fully formed portrait, which is unusual on the subway platform. It captures the cheerful look on her face, the peacefulness of her eyes, juxtaposed against the water falling onto her head. He looks down to sign his usual ‘R’, and when he looks up, she is disappearing onto her train, the doors sliding shut and cutting his view of her to a small slice of window.

The rain patters above, on street level, and he can hear it through the opening of the stairs down into the platform. It should be comforting, relaxing, but it just makes him think of the running he’ll have to do to get home in any state of dryness. And that makes him think of the unfortunate state of his flat. His heat was shut off last week, and he hasn’t got enough to pay the bill. He doesn’t want sit shivering in the dark on the ratty old sofa, tossing and turning through a night that seems longer now that his comfort has gone. His train pulls in and he boards it, noticing the hollow noise of the rain on the cars.

Grantaire likes riding home on the train. It’s hard to sketch people with any kind of subtlety, and they usually ask him to stop when they notice him, uncomfortable with the idea of someone copying down whatever flaws they feel they have. But it’s easy to imagine what they might be like, what the life of one rider might be like on any given day.

He pushes his sketchbook into his backpack and puts it on his lap, crossing his arms over it and rolling out his shoulders with a sigh. He needs a drink, but there’s barely enough money to ride the train home these days, so he’s had to go without. He feels restless, feels the need to lose himself in a daydream. There’s no one interesting in this train car; mostly people he sees on commute nearly every day or chavs with headphones in, staring steely out the dark window. The train stops, its doors sliding open with a ping.

There’s a trickle of people onto the train, and Grantaire only glances up at them once the doors have slid closed again and the train is moving. A young man is sitting one seat up from him, and having commandeered both seats, has his feet up on the other one as he leans against the window. He balances a library copy of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ against the back of the seat and begins to read, already a quarter of the way through the book. His blonde hair is spotted with droplets of water, frizzed out by the moisture in the air. Still, he is lovely, the bad lighting of the metro simply throwing his cheekbones into severe grace and lighting the gentle slope of his nose.

Grantaire wonders what this man’s life is like. He seems well-dressed, wealthy maybe, not a poor starving student like Grantaire with his torn backpack and single pair of jeans. He’s probably a philosophy student, judging by the book in his hand, or maybe a political science student. Maybe he’s not even a student at all; maybe he’s a young business man just out of college. He’s probably going home like the rest of the commuters at this time, or maybe he’s going to a coffee shop somewhere to relax and get things done, or to just and finish his book, or maybe he’s off to a girlfriend’s house.

The man frowns at the book and bites his lip and Grantaire’s fingers itch to draw the intense concentration he can see on that golden face. The frown deepens, and Grantaire wonders why this man is reading a book that makes him look like that. The man sighs, closes the index finger of his left hand in the book, and digs in his bag with his right. He produces a bobble bottle with a red top, drinking from it quickly before tucking it away. Grantaire wonders what his voice sounds like. He leans over the back of the seat before his brain can stop him.

“Interesting book, huh?”

The man snorts, shifting so he can talk over the seat between them more comfortable. “Rubbish, really.”

“So why are you reading it?”

“Know your enemy. Trying to learn more about the other side’s opinions so I can better defend my own.”

The man’s voice is quiet out of respect for others in the car, but holds a sort of impassioned power all the same, a captivating, unexplainable lilt that makes Grantaire want more.

“Not one for Nietzsche’s god is dead ideologies, then?”

“I’m an atheist; that doesn’t bother me so much. It’s his other ideas that I take issue with.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, his theory of amor fati is just so _messed up_. The idea of just accepting the things that happen in your life as all good and fine, not trying to change them at all or better your situation? That only works if you’re already in a good situation. You can’t just turn the other cheek at injustices that make your life harder or pull you down. It means that anyone who is already struggling just gives up and doesn’t even try to pull themselves out of whatever rut they’re in.”

“That’s how most people seem to function.” At least, that’s been his experience. Grantaire thinks of his barren, unheated flat and the box of beer sitting in the middle of the living room floor, the half-eaten tin of stale digestives on the coffee table. He thinks of his drawing professor’s face as he showed up late for the eighth time in a row, flopping down in his seat, still half-drunk.

The man shakes his head, thudding his fist against the back of the seat. “No, it isn’t. You don’t just give up. The government or whatever pushes you down again and again until you’re too weak to keep going. But just sitting there and accepting everything that comes to you? That’s awful! You can’t just be happy about being oppressed or disadvantaged. It’s not human. We always want to better our situation. Making sure people just go along with their lives is horrible.”

“Well,” Grantaire shrugs. “It’s one way to continue to establish the inherent inequality of people. He has two different moralities, one’s always going to be superior.”

“And _that’s_ ridiculous. Just because someone has a lower status doesn’t mean his morality is of lesser value. Just because someone values consequences over intentions doesn’t mean they’re better. It’s just as bad as his whole ‘become what you are’ thing. People aren’t going to decide that they’re part of the moral masses. Everyone thinks they’re unique, and that just means that the people with bad intentions will follow their own plan.”

“It’s the same idea that one morality is superior. You just worded it differently.”

The man’s face is animated now. He’s closed his book and is leaning over the seat to gesture as he speaks, eyes bright with passion. Grantaire wants to draw him this way, wants to watch him like this always. He doesn’t even know the man’s _name_ and he’s captivated.

“There shouldn’t _be_ a superior morality. Goodness is goodness, there aren’t two separate kinds of right, not really. People are equal and need to be treated as such. The ‘noble man’, as he so puts it, should not have all the power or all the credit for being the moral one simply because he is better off.”

“I don’t think it’s quite the credit for moral superiority. It’s subjugation of the lesser people that the noble man gets credit for. The whole master-slave dichotomy. And since the noble man has not only the will but the ability to lord over and control, he gets the credit for the superior morality since he _is_ , for all intents and purposes, superior. Unfortunately, that’s life.”

The man’s kneeling up in his seat now, clutching the back of it with one hand to balance against the buck and sway of the train. Grantaire has his arms crossed over the back of the seat in front of him. The man’s eyebrows are raised, face open in earnest explanation. He’s practically glowing, alive with enthusiasm.

“But it completely contradicts his Ubermensch theory. It totally prevents any ability to break out of a cycle and find a new beginning. Any sort of uprising, whether mental or physical, would be quashed. No revolution of any kind would be possible if everyone took the noble man’s morality to be superior, including the so-called inferior individuals.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s more like a filter.” Grantaire shrugs, picking at a frayed thread where the seat cushion meets the plastic back. He wonders for a moment if maybe he’s just built to be Devil’s Advocate. The thread comes undone and he yanks it off, wrapping around the tip of his finger until it cuts off the circulation, turning it red. “If someone is strong enough or wilful enough to break out of the oppression of the noble man, as we’re calling him, then that person will eventually go on to be the creator of the new world, despite the rather eugenic associations that come with that idea. And the fact that that man would then become the noble man and the cycle would start all over again.”

“But he wouldn’t, though. He’d be aware of the suffering that he went through to get to the higher position, and he’d help the people that are now where he used to be.”

Grantaire manages to catch his disbelieving laugh so it’s only a scoff. “Do you really think that?”

“Yes. I—Oh.” The train is slowing to a stop, the station announced monotonously over the speaker. “This is my stop. Ah—do you—want to get a coffee or something? I like talking to you about this stuff. Unless you’re in a hurry?”

Grantaire doesn’t even need to debate between a warm coffee shop and his own freezing, barren flat. And this stop is only two away from his own, so it’s not so bad. “No, I’m not. All right.”

He shoulders his backpack and follows the man out onto the platform. They walk together in silence until they’re out of the station completely and onto the street. The rain hasn’t let up, so the man shakes out an umbrella and holds it for them both. Everything is smeared and shining in the rain, but this man is strangely solid. Grantaire nods his thanks when the umbrella is held out to include him.

“I never did ask your name,” the man says. “Sorry.”

“I’m Grantaire. Call me R, I like it better.”

“Enjolras.”

They shake. Through some sort of silent agreement, they realize that it is far too cold and wet out to think of strolling and continuing their conversation. Enjolras may be wrapped in a pea coat and scarf, but Grantaire is shivering in his long-sleeved black Henley; his green beanie is the warmest thing he’s wearing right now. He’s relieved when they get in to the little coffee shop that is definitely not a Starbucks. (“I don’t support Starbucks,” Enjolras says. “They’re a monstrous corporate power and they’re taking the market and money away from smaller, family-owned shops. And their employees don’t get paid enough to for dealing with all the assholes on a regular basis.”) It’s warm in here, dry and cosy. It smells like coffee and blueberries. The sound of people typing away at their laptops is just a faint clicking over the rushing of the steamer and the strumming guitar soundtrack that’s playing. They settle at a little round table before getting anything, sitting down just for the chance to get dry.

Grantaire opens his backpack to check that nothing got wet, an automatic action despite the umbrella he walked here under. Enjolras watches him quietly, waiting until he’s put his sketchbook back inside the bag and zipped it up before giving him a smile.

“Ready to go up?”

Grantaire suddenly feels embarrassed. He bites his lip and tries not to squirm. “I—I can’t afford it. I haven’t much money.” He can barely afford to even be inside his own flat, much less eat out. Why did he agree to get coffee again?

“It’s all right, I can get it.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I don’t—”

Enjolras holds out a hand. “It’s fine. It’s just a coffee.”

“Ah—thanks.”

They order their drinks and sit back down. Grantaire cups his hands around the warm mug and breathes in the aroma of black coffee, sticking his face over the steam. Enjolras gulps down a quarter of his own latte, but Grantaire just sips his, trying to make it last. It’s been a while since he’s had anything other than shitty reused grounds.

“All right?” Enjolras asks, watching his reverent treatment of the coffee cup.

“Sorry. Just—money’s tight right now. I haven’t had a good cup of coffee in a while.”

“Recently unemployed?”

“I quit my job this time, actually.” He hates that that’s an unusual thing, but at the same time he _really_ isn’t surprised. “It was shitty and I hated everyone I worked with.”

“But it got you money.”

“But the people were shit. I didn’t want to deal with it.”

“Hm.”

“I’m an artist and a student. We thrive on being destitute. I think.”

Enjolras snorts. “I suppose.” He takes a bite of his biscotti and chews it, musing. Grantaire watches the muscles in his face move, strangely fascinated. How does one human being concentrate so much grace into every movement? “Okay. Human nature.”

“What about it?”

“Inherently good or inherently evil?”

“Wow, not even easing into it. Straight into the hard questions.”

Enjolras looks at him expectantly. “Well?”

“Evil, or at least negative.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah. People are selfish. They’re motivated entirely by their own desires. And while I don’t think that’s negative in any way, it means that people will do whatever they can to get their way. And some pretty fucked up stuff can come out of that. We’re also sort of inherently sadistic. We like to watch other people fail or fuck up. We watch celebrities’ careers spiral downward. We love it when our coworkers get chewed out by our bosses or seeing people get fired from upper positions. It’s a twisted sort of schadenfreude. We hate without thinking about it. We’re jealous. We do horrible, awful things to each other and don’t think twice. We drag each other and ourselves down into the gutter and then just rot there. People are awful. That’s just how it is.”

“Jesus. How did you get so jaded?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” He sips more of his coffee, humming in appreciation. “Obviously you don’t agree.”

“I think people are naturally good. We want to help each other, we want to be around each other. If everyone is equal, everyone will appreciate their life and be good to each other. If we can pull people up with us, we will. It’s just that society and circumstances corrupt people and mess them up. They get beaten down by negativity. Most people don’t _want_ to harm other people. It just happens, or they don’t even realize it. But they can pull themselves out of that negativity and become good again, if they want to.”

“So how do you explain things like little kids beating up other little kids on the playground? Or people doing horrible things to each other simply because they’re a little different?”

“I didn’t say everyone was perfect. They have slip-ups. Society or their upbringing can mess them up. But they can get better. They just need to learn. They can change their behaviour if they want to, they can better themselves and their situation.”

“You’re so optimistic.”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Enjolras throws his words back at him with a grin. He changes the subject abruptly. “Where did you work before you quit?”

“One of those stupid, horribly expensive foreign knick-knack shops. You know, the kind that sell overpriced Indian furniture made in China and American plates made to look Japanese and all that sort of stuff. Tourist trap and home for housewives with horrible taste. It was basically family-owned. But they were assholes and I didn’t want to deal with the stuffy store or the stuffy customers or my boss screaming at me anymore so I quit.”

“That sucks.”

“Eh, my life already sucked, so there’s not much difference. Now it just sucks plus I have no money.”

“I could help you find a job,” Enjolras offers lightly. There’s an optimistic hope in his eyes, an earnest ambition to help someone. It’s an open expression that Grantaire really doesn’t want to spoil with the bleakness that tends to follow him wherever he goes. Enjolras is still looking at him, a hopeful kind of half-smile on his lips.

Grantaire waves him off. “I hate to disappoint you and prove my view on humanity, but I’m a pretty shitty person. It’s almost better for me to be unemployed. If I had a job, I’d spend all my money on booze and probably harass customers and make the employer hate me.”

The beginnings of pity are blooming on Enjolras’ pretty face and Grantaire isn’t sure whether he wants to let the warm sympathy wash over him or slap it right off with anger and distance. “You were an alcoholic?”

“Still am. I just don’t have the money for it right now. Like I said, I don’t _really_ want to prove my view on humanity. But, you know, feel free to judge me now. Most people do.”

The sympathy suddenly morphs into a genuine smile and Enjolras reaches out to touch two fingers to his arm. “I’m not going to judge you for something I’ve never experienced. You said you’re studying art?”

The subject change is abrupt again but Grantaire goes with it. He nods and takes another sip of coffee before answering. “Yeah. At the university. Art and philosophy.”

“I’m doing poli sci, myself. I run a sort of social justice-slash-philosophical discussion club on campus. The subject and theme just sort of depends on the day and who’s there. You’d like it. You should come round some time.”

“Sounds interesting.” It really does. He sometimes forgets how much he likes genuinely discussing things with other people. Usually, he tries to avoid human beings as much as possible.

With a little hum, Enjolras holds up a finger and picks up his bag from the floor. He digs around in it and produces a pen and a little moleskine notebook. Grantaire isn’t surprised. “Listen, I know it sounds silly, but I really like you. And I have a friend who works at a museum that needs a little help. Maybe you could apply to work there? It’s a nice group of people.”

Grantaire takes the little slip of paper that’s handed to him and tucks it into his backpack where it won’t get wet. “Thanks. But—why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re nice, and you’re smart. And despite your point of view on humanity as a whole, you seem like a good person. I don’t pity you or anything. People like you are rare, I think. I want to help you.”

Something trembles, unfolding under Grantaire’s ribcage, and he feels it straining to escape. Something inside him makes him want to stand beside Enjolras, to do whatever this golden man asks of him. There’s hope alive in that man, a hope Grantaire lost years ago, back when things started to fall apart. He knows it’s not something that will be returned to him, but maybe if he stands close enough to Enjolras, he can at least catch glimpses of it.

They stand together, pushing in their chairs. Grantaire flaps his hand uselessly.

“Thank you. I—thank you.” He fumbles for words. Enjolras stands there, holding his empty mug and smiling gently. Grantaire picks up his own mug and fiddles with it as they move to put them at the counter. “Look, I don’t have a phone right now. I don’t have much of anything, really—but is there someplace we could meet at a certain time so I can talk some more about this? And, I mean, I don’t want to sound bad, but I want to see you again.”

“We can meet back here tomorrow, I guess, if it’s not too far from you? Or you can come to the meeting on campus on Wednesday at three.” Enjolras shrugs.

“I could do both.”

“You could do both.”

They’re outside now, and the rain has let up to a regular drizzle instead of the insane torrent of earlier. People are half-heartedly trudging down the pavement now, trying to keep the hems of their trousers from getting totally soaked. Enjolras and Grantaire stand under the overhang. Grantaire feels strangely light, like his organs have been replaced by helium balloons. It’s a nice feeling, better than being drunk. He could get addicted to this feeling.

“I—I should go. I don’t want to make you stand out here in the wet.” He jams his beanie back on his head and hitches his backpack further onto his back, absently picking at the duct tape that’s holding one of the straps together.

“It’s all right. Listen, check that museum out. Let me know what they say.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

Grantaire gives him a lopsided smile. “Thanks, again. So much. I’ll see around, then?”

“Yeah.” They shake hands. Enjolras puts his left hand on top, a warm gesture that Grantaire has never seen anyone do outside of the movies. Something tugs in his chest, like a string. “See you later.”

Grantaire walks back to the metro station feeling warmer than he has in weeks. Even the damp and dripping concrete of the platform doesn’t bother him. There isn’t a whole lot of hope left for him, not the way he is, not the way he lives. But maybe if he sticks by Enjolras, if he watches this golden man soar, maybe he’ll at least catch some rays of the sun. Maybe he’ll at least get to watch this man full of so much ambition and passion become successful. Enjolras seems to believe in him; if Grantaire can’t believe in himself, he can at least believe in Enjolras.

The doors of the train slide open with a ping, and Grantaire shakes himself to attention as someone shoves into the seat behind him, hitting him in the back of the head with her purse as she turns. He’s only halfway home and the rain hasn’t let up, judging by the soaking wet people milling about on the platform outside the window.

The lovely golden man is still sitting two seats up, still frowning deeply at his book. His elbow has slipped over the back of the chair, the position tugging his collar out so Grantaire can see the lines of his neck, the way the blond hair curls around the muscles there. His thumb is over the book cover, so the letters on the front spell out _us Spake_ _rathustra._ His fingers are long and slender. The man sighs, rubs at the bridge of his nose, shaking his head slightly at the book. Grantaire wonders whether it’s the _amor fati_ or the idea of slave-master morality that he’s disagreeing with right now. The man coughs a little and drinks from his water bottle again, the muscles of his throat bobbing with the action. Even silent, he’s captivating.

Grantaire sighs. He’ll try, for Enjolras. He’ll try to get better. Get a job, maybe even try and kick his addiction. Maybe he’ll have a little hope. If not for himself, at least for someone else. Maybe. He doesn’t usually indulge in engaging his daydreams, no matter how detailed. But the man seems to have captured him, and if there’s even a chance, just a spark. Maybe even just a name. He doesn’t know if anything is accurate, but if there’s a chance, any chance at all, even the voice, he’ll take it. The book comes down for a moment, the spine resting against the back of the chair as the man shakes his head with a scoff, blue eyes radiating indignation. Something like hope or wonder wells up in Grantaire's chest. There’s a glow against his ribs, like the halo of golden hair, like the passion that radiated from the Enjolras’ voice. _Maybe…_ Grantaire leans over the back of the seat in front of him and gestures to the paperback.

“Interesting book, huh?”


End file.
